I'm Going Home...

Well, to my university's homecoming that is.

It was last month and I decided that since it's already been 5 years since I graduated and I haven't really been back there since, why not?

We drove the 30 miles over in the late morning. I took the back roads for nostalgic reasons. It was fun driving past all our old favorite just off campus places.

First thing we did on campus was check out the remodeled Cole Hall.

For those that don't know, Cole Hall is the building where the 2008 Valentine's Day shooting occurred (I've mentioned it on Valentine's Day every year since). On the main floor, the building consisted of 2 big auditoriums used mainly for Gen-Ed lectures that the majority of students took during their time at NIU, as well as housed a small anthropology museum. Thanks to the voices of students, alumni and others, they made the decision not to tear down the building like originally planned and instead sent out a survey as to what should be done. The result was a remodel. The outside and front/main hallway got a total facelift, the auditorium where the shooting occurred got split, part of it now being a smart classroom while the anthropology museum expanded into the other part. The other auditorium got a facelift as well so it no longer resembles the old one. Pretty neat.

Gotta admit though, I got chills and started to choke up a little just walking through that building again. I had several classes in that damned auditorium during my time there. It was a tad emotional.

After that visit, we headed over to the Alumni and Visitors Center and proceeded to the Alumni Village area behind it where they had various tents for each college at the university where you could eat free food. Since I was an Art major, we went to the Visual and Performing Arts tent. Can't say I knew a single person there. After we ate lunch we went in search of the school's newspaper tailgating tent, since most of the people I knew during my time at school, outside my art classes, were the newspaper staff. Sadly though, this being the 1st year with a new adviser in years, there apparently wasn't one! Which sucks as I knew some of my fellow newspaper staff people were th

ere... somewhere.

New building in the end zone!

We did get tickets to the game though, where we were up by A LOT at halftime (which is when we

left as Jay couldn't sit through an entire 3 hour football game). There was a lot of changes though - at the one end of field is a new field house that I had no idea existed. You could also the new high-tech residence hall from the stadium. I got myself a new t-shirt, as well as one for Jay to grow into.

After we left the game, I ran into a few of my fellow newspaper peeps - the gal that was editor-in-chief the semester I started as well as 2 guys that I worked on staff with for a few years. It was nice catching up with them!

Jay hamming it up at the football game
with mommy and his plastic Geico gecko
(you can see the plain backside of it)

From there we took a drive around campus and then went to our favorite local dinner, just off

campus.

Then we drove over to the theater so I could harass my bestest buddy from my time there. Sadly, the last of the kids I worked with on staff had just left not too long ago, aside from one that is now management and left before I got there.

If anything, this trip made me realize how much I miss DeKalb and my time in college... we really did have too much fun in college!

Funny story though - at the Alumni and Visitors Center, Geico had a booth and they handed out pompoms with a plastic Geico gecko as the handle. Well, ours immediately broke off so we gave it to Jay to play with... Little Man clung to that plastic gecko alllllll day, lol...

Peaches Come From a Can...

...they were put there by a man. In a factory... downtown."
A friend on Facebook posted the other day about liking something called "Naked and Famous" and of course the 1st thing that popped in my head was The Presidents of the United States of America's song "Naked and Famous" ("Everybody wants to be just like me, I'm naked and famous!").

Can you believe that in 2015 it'll have been 20 years since their self-titled debut was released?!

I remember my childhood best friend got ahold of the CD and we used to listen to it the ridiculousness of it for a good while when we were in... 5th/6th grade! Eventually I got a copy myself.

Even now, I still enjoy it - the songs are fast, catchy and mostly upbeat. I still find myself singing along!

Everyone remembers their hits "Lump" (or its Weird Al parody "Gump") and "Peaches", but the whole album was pretty good! Other favorites of mine include "Kick Out the Jams," "We're Not Gonna Make It," "Backporch," and "Kitty."

Thanks to my brief obsession with the stupid song, Peaches became my nickname in Junior High and was eventually part of my 1st ever internet handle. I also incorporated it into my license plate for some dumb reason (I swear, one of these days I *will* change it... someday. Or so I keep telling myself).

These guys definitely come to mind when you think of mid-90s rockin' jam bands!

Lucky Boy Lost- RIP Joe

At work last week, checking Facebook on my break while waiting for my dinner to microwave, I came across some sad news on my newsfeed - Joe Sell, guitarist for Lucky Boys Confusion, had passed away.

I don't know about your college town, but when I was in college, Lucky Boys were HUGE on the college circuit. All the schools within x-radius of Chicago knew who they were all. Like other college-town bands such as Mike and Joe and Evenflow, Lucky Boys Confusion made the rounds several times a year in DeKalb - I went to several of their super high energy shows (seriously, things got crazy!). They were also pretty big in Chicago too, having played regularly at the Metro for years. 2003 was when they got really big as they released a major-label record titled "Commitment" - you've probably heard their song "Hey Driver" in various movies and commercials. I also recall hearing it played during televised NFL football games in the background. "Killians (Do You Miss Me?)," "I'm Gonna Steal Your Girlfriend," and "Fred Astaire" were other popular songs from their indy debut.

Apparently Joe found dead in Chicago last Tuesday, and so far the cause is not 100% known. They said he had been battling pancreas problems in recent months, having been previously hospitalized for it and had also suffered drug and alcohol addiction in the past too.  No one knows for sure though what the cause of death was.

I didn't know Joe personally, but I did know a handful of people in college who did - a former roommate's then-boyfriend whom I hung around with for a few years had gone to school for years with some of the guys from Naperville (including Joe) and was part of their original street-team. And my ex... Joe grew up around the block from him and was even my ex's babysitter for a few years when they were younger (Joe was 4-6 years older than us) - I remember him taking me past the house just to prove it, as it was his little "claim to fame" that his former babysitter was part of a semi-famous band.

It's still pretty sad though - he wasn't that much older than most of us. I recall hearing Joe was one of the nicer guys in the band. I also think it was Joe who did an awesomely hilarious cover of "Part of Your World" from Disney's Little Mermaid!

RIP Joe - you'll be missed and remembered!

Baby Me!

I saw this on Celia's blog last night and thought it was a cute link-up!

I'm guessing I'm less than a year old here, having a blast in the old skool Johnny Jump-Up!

Apparently I used to love pulling the drawers out and playing in them. And I kinda look like Jay here too, with the similar haircut!

Cute little toddler/pre-schooler, with my hair in pigtails!

Don't You Turn Your Back or You'll Become a Snack!

"Now we've crossed the line, fallen through time... LIVIN' IN THE LAND OF THE LOST!"

I've been meaning to make this Flashback Friday post for sometime now but knew it was going to take a bit longer to research than I've felt up to doing, but now I have 10 days straight to take easy at home and with family, so why not?

Anyways... trying to fall asleep one night, I came across TBS showing the end of the terribad Will Ferrell Land of the Lost movie that came out not too long ago (too bad it was so bad though - Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel was in it). And it got me wondering about the Land of the Lost show that I grew up watching Saturday mornings on ABC.

And no, no. Not this version:

That's an image from the original 1974 Land of the Lost with the Marshall family - that was 10 years before I was born.

THIS is the version of the show I grew up with:

Yep, that's the intro to the 1991 remake with the Porter family and the attractive jungle girl Christa.

One theory I've read on the purpose of Christa was that she was there for all the dad's who got up on Saturday mornings with their kids to oogle

According to Wiki, "because of the success in syndication of the cult 1974 series Land of the Lost, Sid and Marty Krofft created a remake. The new Land of the Lost saw advanced special effects and a lighter, less survivalist-oriented tone ... The series ran for 26 episodes spread over two seasons, with each season consisting of thirteen episodes. It featured the Porter family—father Tom, son Kevin and daughter Annie—trapped in a parallel universe after their Jeep Cherokee (referred to as a "truck" in the series) fell through a time portal while exploring the back country. They soon meet another human, a beautiful "jungle girl" named Christa who came from 1960s San Francisco. Christa became trapped in the Land of the Lost when she was very young and grew up alone. (An earlier concept would have featured an adult Holly Marshall as the "mystery girl" along with Cha-Ka but due to casting the characters were revisualized as Christa and Stink)."

And here's a few fun facts that kind of ties the 2 series together:
"Some fans speculate that Christa is actually Holly Marshall. That the Marshall family sailed away to find their way out of the Land of the Lost, and that Holly was left behind in the storm that took their raft out into the sea ...

 

Is Christa really a grown-up Holly? Hard to tell...

Scarface, Grumpy... he's an angry
T-Rex, so it's possible!

Some fans speculate that Scarface is actually Grumpy of the original series. In that series they often encouraged Grumpy to leave their cave by pushing a large sharpened log called the "flyswatter" out of the cave entrance and into Grumpy's open mouth. Some believe that one encounter with the "flyswatter" scarred Grumpy's eye. The Potter family, being new to the Land of the Lost, named the T-Rex for his facial feature, rather than his grumpy attitude ...

If this were true, it would make Christa and Scarface the only two characters that existed in both TV series.."

That kinda makes sense actually and is an interesting way to explain it for the older generation that grew up watching the original 1974 and got stuck watching the 1991 version with their kids on Saturday mornings.

Sadly, the show only lasted for 2 seasons with a total of 26 episodes spanning a year and a half (from September 1991 to December 1992), being replayed for awhile before being run in syndication later on Nickelodeon. I always wondered how they were going to get home, back to their normal time period.

To be honest, I wasn't big on this show until after my childhood best friend started watching it and was telling me about it. While I'm sure I've seen all the episodes, I didn't watch it religiously... but boy did that theme song get stuck in my head at times - LIVING IN THE LAND OF THE LOST!

Did you grow up watching Land of the Lost?

Taking a moment to reflect...

Not only is today Valentine's Day, but it also marks the 4 year "anniversary" of the tragic shooting at my Alma Mater, Northern Illinois University.

I had just graduated 2 months prior, however I still lived just off campus, had friends and employees still attending there and worked a job where I interacted with the NIU community on a daily basis.

I've mentioned it every year since (feel free to click on February 14 of every year in the archives down the left side of the blog to see past posts), and this year is no different.

To me it's a day of remembrance.

Remembering how the campus and community came together in the wake of the tragedy. Remembering how the building - the very lecture hall I and many others had several gen-ed classes in - was tainted due to the horrific shooting that occurred in it. Wondering why our state is one of the last to allow concealed carry as several of the ROTC students I knew at the time all said that if concealed carry were allowed any ROTC student in the lecture hall could have stopped the killer before he fatally harmed anyone in the time it took for security to arrive. Why our campus? Why our school? Why? He wasn't even a current student there! As far as we know, he didn't even know any of the victims he killed or shot!

Forward together, forward Huskies.

They did recently reopen Cole Hall at the start of this semester, after giving it a $6M facelift and renovating the inside. Like many who were around during the time of the shooting though, I'll admit, I do have mixed feelings about it.

My 1st Ever Post

Bored, I got to wondering if I could find the 1st blog I ever made back in my freshman year of college, and sure enough... it still exists!

A friend had an online diary/journal and I decided to make one of my own on Diaryland.com. Eventually I made a Livejournal and hung out there for years, making long rambling detailed posts of my day or posting meme after meme, quiz result after quiz result... but then everyone jumped on Myspace and I continued blogging over there before posting regular "notes" on Facebook and then creating this baby here in late 2009.


Anyway, here's my 1st post ever (with the names shortened to their initials):

2003-03-26 - 1:20 a.m.

"today is the greatest... day ive ever known..." in the words of billy corgan... but yea, today was awesome! nothing could have ruined my day. 1st, i only went to one class (journalism) and we got out early cuz it was just a review for the test on thursday. L. and i went to room sign up and we got the room we wanted - suite, no bathroom - and we're roomin together too. then i drove to target and bought the new LiNkiN PArK cd "METEORA" - one of the best CD's ever! after journalism E. came up and we ate dinner together and then later that night we went to the papa roach/nonpoint concert at otto's. that was an awesome concert. D. couldnt go at the last min so B. sold his ticket to his buddy K.. L. and P. went w/ us also. die tryin and reach 454 were the opening bands... they were okay and nonpoint was okay live... during papa roach i got to be about 3 ppl from the stage/barriers, coby dick (the lead singer of papa roach) crowd surfed over my head and later he almost touched my hand... and i got half of his water bottle dumped on me... it was great. i ran into goose and mav (my next door neighbors) goose caught a drumstick... B. caught a free cd from reach454... but yea, today was awesome..."

I was quite the rocker chick back then! And as usual, I rambled on and on... yeah, that hasn't changed! And OMG, lack of paragraphs and capitalization... yes, I went through a phase where I thought it was cool not to capitalize the 1st letter of a sentence and there was time where I was intent on making it "my thing" where I would be known for not capitalizing my "i"'s... oh dear, young college self...

But be glad I'm not still making daily posts similar to this one that my college roommate once humorously posted on her Livejournal, mimicking me:

"Yesterday I woke up at 10:53. I took exactly 25 steps to the bathroom and peed. Then I realized I had morning breath so I brushed my teeth. Then I looked in the mirror and realized I had a fro and I should straighten it, so I did."

Yeah... she hit it pretty spot on! LOL....

Hard to believe it's been almost 9 years ago since I joined the blogworld!

Do you remember your 1st post or your 1st blog? How have you changed since then?

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Days 9 & 10

I forgot to do Day 9 so I'll just combine it with Day 10 (which is the last one!!)

Day 9

2012 Goals & Resolutions

As cliche as it sounds, lose weight. 
Jay's almost a year old and I would really like to get back to my pre-preggo weight and maybe lose a little more. Basically, I'd like to look decent in a swimsuit again so I can take Jay this summer since he's old enough to wade in a baby pool and splash around, but that means getting the stretch marks to fade enough so they're not in your face noticable and making sure my pooch doesn't make people want to lose their lunch, lol...

And obviously make memories with Jay. 
I really hate working retail during the holiday season because they work me to my max since we're soooo busy, but after December it tends to die down and hopefully I won't be working more than 2-3 days a week (right now I average 3 but this next week I'm work 4 since we're so close to Christmas). Like I've said before, I don't NEED to work, it's just any money I make is all extra and helps cover anything extra Jay might need (plus the discount is nice for his clothes - with our employee sale the other day, I picked up his $60 3-in-1 jacket for next year for just $20!) so work shouldn't come before family and Jay stuff.

Find a weekly playgroup for Jay.
He needs social interaction with other kids close in his age. Whether it's an official playgroup, the church nursery or just meeting up with a friend with kids close to his age once a week, it doesn't matter so long as he's getting interaction with other kids - it's hard to teach him about sharing and things like that when he doesn't really have anyone he has to share with, ya know?

I'd also like to get our yard in order. 
This 1st year we more focused on the inside of the house and getting it to how we wanted so it felt like home. But our yard could use some work - we need to lay dirt around the foundation in the backyard to slope rain and such away from the house. Our firepit (that was already there) could use some work. Jay needs a swing set and area to play in. There's a part of the deck that's not completely stable. And we'd like to put in a concrete walkway from the driveway through the back gate and around the side past the deck and garage door as it's basically just mud/dirt there right now.

Pay off the majority of our debt.
My car will be paid off in May and we have some hospital/medical bills from when Jay was born as well as ones related to his other hospital stay and visits regarding his kidney/ureter tube. Plus we put some of the hospital bills on the credit card to get a collection agency off our backs. We also have a Best Buy account that'll be paid off soon too. Our tax return will help with a big chunk of this plus having my car paid off will be an extra $200/mo we can put towards paying other stuff off, so hopefully by the end of 2012 (assuming hubby hasn't gotten promoted to full-time yet) we'll only have his car and our house left as major debt.

Day 10

New Year's Eve Memories/Pictures

One of the more memorable New Year's Eves I had was 2004/2005. Jeny (my long-time college roommate) was still involved with the indy wrestling circuit in the Chicago-area and a bunch of her wrestling buddies were having a party at someone's place just across the border in Indiana. We went, along with our boyfriends at the time, however by the time we got there it was 30 minutes to midnight and back then we held the belief that you had to be drunk at midnight. So we quickly began to drink. And drink we did! We did several shots as well as this drink that had 1/3 beer, 1/3 something else and 1/3 something else. It was really good though! Someone had us take a shot of this anti-hangover stuff, but it tasted like chloroseptic spray and definitely didn't help my hangover the next morning! It was fun time though. One of our friend's proposed to his pregnant ex-gf at midnight, but no one noticed it happening until someone yelled it out! Doh! A bunch of the guys went streaking too and Jeny and I, being goofy, decided we would go streak behind them with our all our clothes on, lol... We got waaay too drunk that night, but had a lot of fun and ended it in the office guest room watching our favorite movie (Napoleon Dynamite), lol... the next morning and the drive home sucked (I had to stop in Naperville at my boyfriend's parents' house to get my car before driving an hour and a half back to my parent's house), but it was definitely a memorable New Year's Eve!

Then there was the 1st NYE that hubby and I were a couple:

We all went to a friend's classy party at their house (dress up nice, champagne at midnight...). Jeny and I played some Guitar Hero and started swing dancing at one point.

Then there was our 1st NYE as a married couple...

I wanted to go out and an old mutual friend of my high school ex's invited us out with them for dinner and a party afterwards. We skipped the dinner but met up at the one guy's house (he lives with his mom whom I remembered from high school - it was nice seeing her again!). It was a little awkward - they kept playing Beer Pong in teams and then someone had drama with their on again, off again gf who decided to be a bitch that night... hubby and I played some Left 4 Dead though before leaving an hour or so after midnight (like I said, it got awkward with the drama!).

The year after that I insisted hubby join his brothers at a small party at a family friend's of theirs about an hour away from us (which he thanked for doing later as he did enjoy himself and the time with his brothers). Gotta admit though, I got bored and while we planned on spending the night on air mattresses, I couldn't sleep and so hubby and I drove back at 4am to sleep in our own bed.

Then last year... ugh.

It was memorable but not in a good way. I was very pregnant and we met up with hubby's brothers at the one's gf's parent's house. I couldn't drink obviously though so I just drank water and ate chips and salsa since I was on my crappy diabetes diet. And they kept playing Beer Pong in the same teams (I hate that game - only a few can play at a time and it's boring for everyone else. If you're not going to play drinking card games at least  play flippy cup where lots of people can play!). Hubby's brothers got too drunk though and while hubby wanted to enjoy the night, we ended up taking care of his youngest brother who doesn't have the same tolerance as the rest of the family and started puking... and almost got in a fight with one of his other brothers after he saw him making out with a girl he was interested in and said brother came over to try and help with baby bro (like I said, it wasn't good and we had to keep them separated for awhile). Hubby was pissed as it completely killed his buzz and well, I was completely sober and just not enjoying myself. I don't like going to parties and not drinking when everyone else is. Sure, some people can do it, but for me it's just not fun being sober when everyone is acting all goofy due to alcohol. I at least like a good buzz. Plus, I must just be getting old cuz partying with a bunch of minors and people in their young 20s isn't really all that fun anymore. It was really weird when her parents came home from their evening out with the younger kids... and then joined in the fun by playing Beer Pong! Yeah... awkward!

Not sure what we're doing this year - part of me wants to go out, but the other part kinda wants to stay home with Jay and introduce him to my family's tradition of blowing the paper kazoo thing and banging pots and pans at midnight to "ring in" the new year. So I'm not sure... either way, I'm definitely having a drink this year since I couldn't last year!

"I'll do what I want, GOSH!"

Watching Napoleon Dynamite on TV for the millionth time recently reminded me of one of the previous times I was watching it and decided to look something about it up on Wiki... and much to my delight, learned they're making an animated series out of it that will be debuting on Fox in 2012!!!

For those that watch Talking Dead each week after The Walking Dead, you might have heard a mention to this last week when Jon Heder (and Felicia Day! <3 her!!) were the guest commentaries.

I'm seriously freaking excited about this though!!!

They have the original cast from the movie back (minus Kips eventual wife Lafawnduh, as it sadly seems the series takes place without her) which makes it even more awesome!

The movie came out in 2004, near the beginning of my 3rd year of college, and when my former college roomie and I were just starting to hang out. This basically became our movie as over the course of our friendship we've watched it waaaay too many times to count (it was also our go-to movie when drunk, as we thought it was hilarious and could quote it word for word, lol... we even made a drinking game out of it!). Seriously, we LOVED this movie and whenever I watch it I think of the fun times we had together.

I am soooo excited for the TV show - hubby thinks I'm crazy, but I know he'll end up watching it with me.

My guess is that it'll air Sunday nights, during Fox's Animation Domination block with Family Guy and The Simpsons.

Also, don't forget to enter my Bath & Body Works Signature Fragrance Holiday Giveaway!

The Fabulous Fall Blog Challenge, Days 9 & 10

 

I was bad yesterday and didn't get around to posting day 9, so here's the last 2 days of the Fabulous Fall Blog Challenge! This was pretty fun!

Day 9: Favorite Football Pastimes

Watching the Cowboys, obviously!

Growing up, almost every Thanksgiving I would catch at least part of the Cowboys game. In high school, the guy I dated was as big a Chicago Bears fan as hubby is a Dallas Cowboys fan (ie: flipping out at the TV, jumping around like a madman, lol...) and so every Sunday he would come over and watch the game on my dad's bigger TV with the surround sound, lol... And since I've been with hubby the last almost 5 years (Wow! Congrats hon, you're officially the guy I've been with the longest! hehe...) football season in the fall and winter has always been about watching the Cowboys and cheering them on.

As I mentioned previously in this challenge, last fall we took a trek down to Dallas, Texas as neither of us had been there, my college roommate lives down there now and wanted us to come visit and well, we decided to go in the fall just so we could catch a Cowboys game while we were there! So that was fun, despite it being the Monday night game against the NY Giants where Tony Romo (our main quarterback) broke his clavicle and was out the rest of the season. We also made sure to stock up on Cowboys gear both at Walmart and the Pro Shop since our Walmart up here only sells Bears and Packers stuff (boooo!).

23ish weeks pregnant , so technically Jay's been there too, lol...

In college, when I lived on campus in the dorms, we would regularly attend the NIU football games too - I got to see Michael Turner (now on the Atlana Falcons), Garrett Wolfe (former Chicago Bear), Doug Free (Dallas Cowboys), and Sam Hurd (former Dallas Cowboy, now Chicago Bear) play for our Huskies!


Day 10: Thanksgiving Memories

Hm... well, like I said, I almost always caught part of the Cowboy's game on Thanksgiving while growing up.

When I was really little I used to get up early and watch the Macy's parade, with Santa arriving at the end, signifying Christmas was just around the corner.

For the longest time Thanksgiving was at my parent's house every year. Then my aunt and uncle got married and we started alternating Christmas and Thanksgiving (one year my mom would do Thanksgiving at our house and my aunt would do Christmas at her house and then the next year they would switch). Since hubby and I got married we decided to alternate where we did Thanksgiving each year as his parents live over an hour away and we hate rushing back and forth (Christmas isn't an issue as my family does everything on Christmas Eve while hubby's is on Christmas Day).

Our wedding, 3 years later

I've seen this wedding meme pop up several times the past few months or so and it looks like a lot of fun! Since today is me and hubby's 3 year anniversary I thought I would do this meme in honor of it!

A is for Attending

We had right around 120 people, having invited about 140, despite our reception hall only being able to seat 120 in the main dining room (oops!). We got lucky though and were able to squeeze everyone in one room!

B is for Bridesmaids

My bridesmaids were (from left to right) my little sister, my best friend from Junior High and High School (she was Matron of Honor), a friend of mine and hubby's that we had both known since Junior High, and my roommate & best friend from college. No, they didn't wear the hats during the actual wedding - the hats were part of the guys' attire but they let the bridesmaids take some awesome photos with them! And as you can see, at the reception, some of them decided to wear their sashes as scarves =)

C is for Catering

We actually didn't have any "special" catering as our reception hall included the food as part of the building rental. We did buffet style for the dinner though, as we figured that'd be easiest for everyone. I honestly don't remember too much of what was served! But I do remember it was all really yummy!

Hubby actually made the suggestion of who to do our cake - a supervisor friend of his from UPS at the time, her mom makes cakes for a living and from time to time she would bring some in to share with them at work and he said it was the best cake ever. She makes her own special icing too, which is excellent! Everyone loved the cake and kept saying how good it was and the best part was just how reasonable her prices were compared to most of the other "big name" cake people in town. We also had her do my baby shower cake and I plan on calling her up and having her do Jay's 1st birthday cake too when the time comes.

Should also note our awesome cake topper! My Matron of Honor had one of these for her wedding almost a year prior to mine and I loved it! After having a hard time finding a way to do our WoW characters as a topper (as Figureprints is expensive and has their lotto system) I thought this was a nice alternative. The maker of the cake topper was originally a company on eBay called Ling's Moment (you can find their current site by Googling them). Basically you do "Buy It Now" on eBay and they send you an email with color palettes and a questionnaire about your attire, etc. They send you several pictures throughout the process so you can change a color or have them add something etc. I LOVE our cake topper - it's currently in a display cabinet in our house.

D is for Dress

I got my dress from One Stop Wedding here in Rockford. It's a smaller boutique in town and was the 1st place we went to for dress shopping. I tried on a handful but this one seemed to be the best of them and because it was off the rack we got it for a great price! I want to say it was an Alfredo Angelo. It had a row of buttons down the back of the dress which I loved and it's actually a light ivory instead of white. One of the straps was broken when we bought it but my mom, being the seamstress she is, could easily fix that and we did the unique criss-cross thing in the back. I tried a handful on at David's Bridal (and had a really pushy saleswoman who almost made it seem like I *had* to pick their most popular dress they were pushing) but this dress was in the back of my mind the whole time and I decided that was the dress and we ran back and got it before they closed for the night.

E is for Engagement

We got engaged at the beginning of January 2008 so we had roughly a 9 month engagement as we were married on September 13, 2008.

F is for Flowers

Unity Candle display (ignore stuff in background)

My bouquet

Bridesmaid bouquet

Pew bow

Reception table centerpiece, sat on top of mirrored glass

The chapel outcome

Our flowers were all DIY. I wanted red roses which are expensive and I have allergies so real flowers were out of the question anyway. My aunt used to do flower arrangements so she had some experience doing them and my mom is crafty too so between the 2 of them they did all our decorations and flowers. We used LOTS of the weekly 40% off coupons from Michaels and Hobby Lobby and my mom cleaned Michael's out of their faux red roses the day after Valentine's Day when they went on clearance too, lol...

G is for Groomsmen

Hubby with his groomsmen

From left to right we have hubby's 2nd youngest brother, our good friend who lives about an hour away whom we originally met in World of Warcraft several years prior, hubby, hubby's brother that's a few years younger than him, hubby's youngest brother. Years ago in college I was at a party with some friends and one of the guys was talking about a wedding he was in where they were doing the zoot suit look and OMG I thought that was the coolest idea ever and had to have it for my own wedding. Hubby was all for it too and so we opted for the longer suitcoats and the fedoras and we got the guys all pocket watches with chains as their wedding party gift that they could wear the day of as well.

H is for Honeymoon

The view from our hotel room balcony!

We went to Vegas for our honeymoon, getting there late Monday evening and leaving early Saturday. We did lots of tourist-y things like visiting the Hoover Dam, a nearby chocolate factory, seeing a Vegas show (Bite - an adult show with "vampires" dancing to classic rock), walking The Strip and stopping into all the famous hotels and casinos along the way (we started at the south end at Mandalay Bay and spent and entire day walking all the way north to the Stratosphere), and road the indoor gondolas at the Venetian and checked out the wax museum too! We stayed at The Plaza on Fremont Street in the downtown area and had an amazing view outside our window too!

Some tips: 1) Don't walk from Fremont Street to The Strip and especially not in heels - it's A LOT further than it looks, the flat topography lies! 2) Slots A Fun is an AWESOME place to hang out and kill time - cheap, but good (and large!) booze, low pay-in costs at the tables and $1 footlong hotdogs!! We went to this place several times on The Strip (it's out in front of Circus Circus, across from the Riviera).

I is for Invitation

 

I went to a bridal show shortly after our engagement and for $20 down, if you got your tuxes from this one tux shop located in our local mall you would get your invitations for free (or rather, they would rebate the cost). Our colors were red, black and silver and our theme was double hearts, so we went with these simple invitations.

I also made Save the Date magnets for people too!

J is for Justice of the Peace

Hubby's dad is an ordained Reverend/Minister who has his whole missions ministry that he does and hubby specifically requested that his dad wed us. It was the only request he really had so I agreed to it (although the months before the wedding he did start getting a little bit more into some of the wedding stuff and became a little bit more opinionated than he had been, hehe).
 

K is for Keepsakes

  

For our favors to guests we made M&M tins with red and ivory M&Ms as well as placeholder cards that I made that sat atop little doubleheart topped bells (not pictured).

L is for Ladies Night

My bachelorette party... it was held 2 weeks prior to our wedding (as the night before is just tacky) and the same weekend as my bridal shower as one of my bridesmaids lives in Minnesota and it was easier for her to have them both the same weekend so she could just stay with family in town. Since my sis is underage and was a bridesmaid and I invited hubby's brother's underage girlfriend to join us we kept it PG13 to start and invited my mom and my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law and cousin (who were 10 at the time). We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner (which had just opened the week before so it was a bit packed!) and then went bowling for a bit afterwards, where those of us old enough could get drinks from the bowling alley bar. Gotta admit, I was feeling a nice buzz when we left there and me, my 3 legal bridesmaids and my aunt (who was our DD for the night) went bar hopping for the rest of the night. They made me do that bachelorette scavenger hunt game where you have to take pictures doing random things, like dancing on top of a bar (which a bartender let us do on one of their empty back bars so long as he didn't notice, lol...), and get kisses (on the cheek or hand) by an assortment of guys and retrieve a condom from a bathroom, lol... it was interesting! The first bar we went to was laidback and played 80s hairband metal which I found awesome. The bartender also looked like hubby's brother's twin too which was a bit odd and we met some creepy old fart who was trying to teach us "golf swings". We went to a bar downtown that I liked and my aunt insisted we go dancing at the gay bar downtown as well, so we did (we were pretty drunk by this point, all I remember was dancing with my bridesmaids in the cage they had and some gay guys posing for a picture with us, lol... oh and I got a "goody bag" too from there!).

M is for Music

We put together our own playlist for the ceremony and one of my brother-in-laws performed a song that my father-in-law wrote and sang at his wedding years ago that he let us borrow for our wedding. For the reception we had a set of DJ's (Sounds Unlimited from Rockford, IL) who I met at the bridal show I went to - they had polka on their playlist which sold me as my dad and grandpap are both big on polka and I had to have at least 1 polka played, lol... whatever they didn't have in their catalog they said we could submit on CD for them and they did a great job. They were older guys but had been in the business since the 80s and were known for DJing the annual fireman's ball event every year and they were a lot of fun and did a really good job! They also had the best price in town too!

Our 1st dance was to our song - "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol
The wedding party's dance was to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey
For Father/Daughter dance we used "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle (which btw, is a REALLY long song when everyone is watching you!)
And Mother/Son dance was to "Moon River"
For our last dance we played "Closing Time" by Semisonic

N is for Newlyweds

We spent the day after our wedding at my parents house with family and relatives from out of town for a brunch and we opened our gifts too... and fell asleep on the couch for a bit before running out to Target to buy some last minute stuff for our honeymoon, like a camcorder we had on our registry as well as a luggage set.

O is for Old, new, borrowed, blue

Old and borrowed was a ring I wore, new and blue were my underwear I ordered that had "Bride" printed on the butt, lol...

P is for Photography

We had Solko Photography for our photography and well... it could have been better. Originally when we booked we had the owner slated as our photographer. We went with them as my matron of honor had them for her wedding and they did a really good job. Well, a few weeks before my wedding I get a call, requesting we permit them to have one of their other photographers shoot our wedding as another bride they booked on our day decided last minute she wanted their videography services and the only ones that could use the equipment were the owner and her husband (who was already slated to shoot that wedding, meaning she would have to do the video). They gave us a great break on our package, basically giving us our album for free, and we agreed after seeing the other guy's work and it looking fine. However I was a bit disappointed in the lack of candids he took and that we didn't get some photos with relatives we never see that I really would have liked to have gotten. To be honest, one of my bridesmaid's dad's was taking photos the whole day too and I really liked more of the ones he took better! And the album... I was under the assumption I'd get to pick which photos went in the album, but apparently not - they chose them and had it all put together by the time they called me and some of the photos... I would have chose others. I was told I could switch out 3 for free and then a fee for others. Yeah... since I owned the copyright for the proofs I bought an album and compiled the ones from the photographer and the one's from my bridesmaid's dad (and others who took photos) and put together my own wedding album which we display on our coffee table. Don't get me wrong, our photography was fine, just... iono... not quite what I thought I guess you could say.

Q is for Question popping

My ring!

 When and where he proposed was a bit of a surprise! I knew it was going to be sometime after my college graduation in December 2007, as we had talked before and he said I had to finish college before he would propose (as a way to motivate me to stick with it as I was really hating school the last few years). Christmas came and went with no proposal, as did New Year's, so I was expecting maybe for Valentine's Day. (I knew he already had the ring as I came across a receipt for resizing so I knew it was going to happen to eventually). We went out for lunch after church that Sunday to Chili's with one of his brother's and his brother's then-girlfriend. Him and I got to talking about when he was going to take his 2 vacation weeks that year and I told him it all depended on him and he slide down from his chair, pulled out the ring and asked if it all depended on him asking me to marry him. Obviously it did and that was what I was implying. While I still am a bit confused by the location (up until then we had never gone to Chili's together and even now we don't frequent there often, lol...), it was definitely us - laidback and a bit random, lol...

R is for Reception

Our reception was at the University Club in Rockford, IL. My aunt had her wedding there nearly 11 years or so prior and since then I had always envisioned mine being there. It's an older historic building in downtown Rockford and very pretty. We had a sit down, buffet-style dinner and then dancing in the next room later in the night. There was also a bar however we only had open bar for hubby and I as I had heard of horror stories where the whole wedding party had open bar access but gave drinks out to LOTS of the guests, making the bar tab nearly half of the reception cost!

S is for Shoes

I wore strappy block heeled sandals in an ivory color to match my dress.

T is for Trash the Dress

Yeah... no thank you. Granted I'll only wear it once, but I can't bring myself to trash it like that.

U is for Unique

Well we did the Zoot Suit type suits for the guys, we used my dad's 1965 Corvair as our getaway vehicle, and our cake topper was custom-made.

V is for Vows

 

We just stuck with the traditional ones.

W is for Wedding Woes

Oh we had quite a few!

1st, my grandma (mom's mom) passed away the night before. She had been sick in the hospital for awhile now so we knew it was going to happen sometime soon. I hadn't been close to her in years though, but it was still a bit sad. All her kids and her brother were in town for the wedding and got to say goodbye to her though and they said the wedding was a nice distraction too.

The morning of my wedding, while on my way to the hair stylist, my mom calls asking how much I really wanted to wear a veil. I wasn't that crazy about them to begin with so we bought one from Hobby Lobby for a fraction of the cost of a bridal shop's. Apparently while steaming my veil that morning my mom got the iron a little too close and it melted part of the veil - oops! Oh well, I didn't want to wear one really anyway, lol...

Then, my mom never met us at the salon as she got held up at the reception hall fighting with them over the chairs in the dining room setup. We were paying them extra to set it up banquet style like they did at my aunt's wedding (as that fits the most people in there, which we needed) which I guess they no longer do very often, but apparently half the chairs they used were too high that when sitting you couldn't get your knees under the table!! My mom got my aunt's inlaws involved, in which her father-in-law had been president at the club several times, and they took care of it for us so my mom could meet us at the church in time.

What we refer to as
"the hairspray incident"

As we're getting ready before the ceremony my mom said she wanted to spray my hair with hairspray one more time to make sure it held. As she spraying my hair like crazy we notice 1) it doesn't smell like hairspray and 2) my hair is wet. Turns out, my sis had used the spray bottle awhile back and used it for water on a hot day to spray on herself and my mom forgot and so she had soaked my hair we had just paid to have done! Fortunately we had a big curling iron to fix my curls and my matron of honor had heavy duty hairspray with her that we used and we saved the day!

It rained almost all day - we didn't get to take very many outside photos at locations we had planned and we couldn't do the dancing outside like we had wanted.

My dad's side of the family left and went back to the house to hang out between the ceremony and reception so we didn't really get any photos with them like we had wanted.

Hubby had trouble getting my dad's Corvair to start several times.

The DJ messed up my sister's last name during her introduction - I gave specific notes on how to pronounce it, as it rhymes with Harris...  yeah, he just said Harris instead /facepalm

During his speech before dinner, my dad goofed and said hubby had fallen in love with my sister many years ago instead of me. There was a pause after he said it and everyone burst into laughter at his mistake which he caught right after he realized what he had said, lol...

I'm sure there were others but those were the most memorable, lol...

X is for X-Rated

No one that does this meme seems to know what this one is supposed to be, lol...

Y is for Young Kids

Since we didn't know any little boys at the time (besides our nephew but we weren't sure if they would make it or not) we didn't have a ringbearer. Hubby's little sister and my little cousin, who were both 10 at the time, were our flower girls - hubby's sister carried the rings and my cousin did the flowers.

Z is for Zzzz

We slept good that night (took hubby forever to get me out of my dress and then it took me forever pulling all the bobby pins out of my hair, lol...), had brunch with family the next day and then Monday morning we left for Vegas which was nice, fun and relaxing!

Happy Anniversary, Hun! 

We've had our share of ups and downs these past few years we've been together, but like our vows say, we take each other "for better or for worse." Here's to many more years together!